Justin Trudeau, 45, announced the move in a Twitter message last night that read: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada”.
The Canadian leader also tweeted a picture of him crouching and smiling as he welcomed a family of Syrian refugees to Toronto last month after they arrived at Pearson International Airport.
One out of five people in the country are foreign-born according to the latest Canadian census from 2011,
Government figures also show that nearly 40,000 Syrian refugees were admitted between November 2015 and the beginning of this January.
Earlier this morning Prime Minister Trudeau also released a statement confirming that Canadian citizens with dual nationality will not be affected by the ban on Muslims entering the US.
The refugee ban came into force on Friday afternoon after Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days.
He also created a ban denying citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia – countries with a majority of Muslims – entry to the USA for 90 days.
He said the move, which he had talked about throughout his campaign, was to allow for “extreme vetting” and to “keep terrorists out”.
Visiting the State Department on the same day, he said: “We are establishing new vetting measures, to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America.”
The businessman, who used to star on The Apprentice television show, added: “We don’t want ‘em here. We want to ensure we aren’t admitting into our country the very threats that our men and women are fighting overseas.”
Since the ban came into effect travellers from those seven countries have been stopped from boarding US-bound planes, including those with valid visas to enter the US.
The President’s actions triggered angry protests in New York and last night a federal judge blocked part of the Republican’s temporary immigration ban, ordering authorities to stop deporting refugees and other travellers now stuck at US airports.
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